


To Take Care of Your Own

by arysthaeniru



Series: the city is an abyss [8]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marui wasn't quite sure why he expected anything else, but he supposed that a part of him had been thinking of their activities as that of vigilante justice and not crime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Take Care of Your Own

The first thing that Marui noticed, upon peeking his head past the door, was how bad it smelled in there. Not like the usual smell of the city, which was disgusting by itself for most upper-town-dwellers, and not like the chemicals of which the lab was supposed to smell of, being one of the three main drug labs in their institute. No, this lab smelled like stale air and musty sweat and someone who really needed to shower.

“Oi, Yagyuu?” called Marui, wrinkling his nose as he looked around the dark lab. Ah, did he really have to go in?

He took a deep breath of the air outside the lab, before stepping into the room, grimacing as the automatic lights flickered on, sending his motion. The lab looked a lot less scary and sharp in the white, tube light. And it was also easier to spot Yagyuu taking a nap on the desk, hair ruffled and snoring slightly. Geez, didn’t most day-night labs have that weird cot in the corner so the scientists could actually sleep? He wondered whether he would have to make a not-so-subtle hint to Yagyuu and the other conveniently-absent lab assistants about that.

He walked in, and pushed Yagyuu’s shoulder, easily. “Yagyuu, wake up.” said Marui, with a slightly annoyed look. “You’re going to be late.”

As he expected, Yagyuu darted up, with wide, dazzled eyes, his glasses skewed and his hair messy from where they’d been resting on his elbows. Upon seeing Marui and slowly remembering that he wasn’t late for anything, he smoothed out his hair and glared, quite impressively at Marui.

“Marui-kun, that was uncalled for.” he said, stiffly.

Marui grimaced as he gave Yagyuu a once-over. He didn’t really look anything like the put-together gentleman that Marui was used to. Yagyuu had always been pretty scary, as their doctor and medic in one. He was usually fiercely put together, in a completely black suit, button down shirt and trousers, and a bright, blood-red tie at all times, with the red cloth of his sins tucked into his breastcoat pocket, visible to anyone who wanted to see. Marui had admired him for that organization. There wasn’t much to be admired now, with the dark bags under Yagyuu’s eyes, the vague smell of body-odour, and the general uncleanliness around him.

“Who are you and what the fuck have you done with Yagyuu? Because this is not what one of my closest friends would ever stand for.” asked Marui, tightly, crossing his hands across his chest, feeling really unimpressed.

Yagyuu adjusted his glasses and straightened his suit, quietly. “I have work to do, Marui-kun. Thank you for waking me up, but you need to leave now.” he said, his voice still slightly clouded with sleep and disorientation.

Marui refused to budge, as he dug his heels into the ground. “Yukimura’s not going to begrudge you a hour to clean yourself up and eat something. At this point, you look even worse off than Renji, and that’s saying something, because Renji lives off of fumes, coffee and data.”

Yagyuu looked a little mollified and Marui forged on, with a grin. Of course, his tensai-nature made this all easier. There was a reason that Jackal had asked him to do this instead of the baby ace. “Right, I got you some clothes and some food, so go take a fucking shower, change and then come back. Otherwise I won’t give you any of my genius food!” he demanded, as he poked Yagyuu’s chest.

Yagyuu looked vaguely amused as he accepted Marui’s small package of clothes. Of course, Yagyuu could just go get food from somewhere else, but he was following Marui’s orders, which meant he did want to get clean. Good. Yagyuu hadn’t been replaced by a face-eating drug-obsessed alien.

Marui watched him go, with a slight sigh, before he glanced around the room. He had been meaning to sort of organize it a bit, but did he really want to? Who knew what all of this stuff was, anyway?

In the end, he cleared off one table, and swabbed it down with antiseptic and a healthy dose of neutralizing agent. The other things were scattered among the other tables and the air was sprayed up with lysol, air freshener and several pot pourri containers were left underneath lab desks, where they wouldn’t get in the way, or accidentally get set on fire. Marui sat back on a stool, as Yagyuu returned to the room, his glasses tucked into his pocket and towelling off his hair. The new suit was crisp on him and he looked a lot better, though there were still dark circles under his eyes.

“There, now you look human again.” said Marui, with a grin. Yagyuu returned a slightly dry smile.

“What brings you to disturb my dark slumber?” he asked, with a dry, self-deprecating tone to his voice, now he was more awake. “You strongly dislike the labs.”

Marui grinned, as he shrugged. “Just worried about you, I guess. Rest of us haven’t seen you in ages. Guess it sorta culminated when Akaya, of all people, managed to notice that you weren’t around. Jackal and I drew straws and I won the honour of retrieving you from the brink of darkness.”

There was a skeptical look in Yagyuu’s eyes as he took a seat opposite Marui. “And what else?” he asked, as he removed the towel and neatly folded it underneath the lab drawers. “You’re not very good at hiding your tension, you know.”

Marui shoved a bento box along to Yagyuu, letting the lacquered surface slide across the newly polished desk. “I think you’d better eat first.” he said, with an uneasy voice and Yagyuu frowned at that statement, as he cracked open some chopsticks.

“Itedakimasu.” he said, and ate his food quickly and neatly. Marui stayed silent, as he watched Yagyuu eat. In theory, he should have filled up the space with idle chatter like he usually did, to put most people at ease, but the problem was only intensifying, and he really wasn’t in the mood to try and pretend that everything was completely okay, not when Yagyuu had seen right through him.

“So, what’s able to to disconcert the tensai?” asked Yagyuu, lightly mocking, but ever polite. He shut the box and placed his chopsticks neatly on top, as he slid the box back to Marui. Marui got up, abruptly and jerked his head for Yagyuu to follow him. With a concerned glance, Yagyuu reached for his wallet, switched off the lights and followed Marui out of the room. He caught up with Marui’s stride instantly, lucky bastard with long legs.

“What—”

“Two hours ago, Tezuka’s police force marched into the west side of the slum﹘without Tezuka﹘mind you. Sanada says it wasn’t premeditated, and I’m thinking he’s right. There was a riot, and Tachibana’s people managed to push them back to the city. We’ve already had three casualties, and there’s another twelve more severely injured.” Marui reported, grimly.

Yagyuu’s frown grew wider, but he also looked a little confused. “Tragic, I’m sure, but you have other medics, that can’t be why you want me out of the labs.”

I’m sure? Yagyuu was as cold as ever, it seemed. “Right, you catch on fast. Yukimura wants you to delegate the actual drug-making to someone else. He wants you back on active duty, with either Niou or Yanagi: who’s temporarily injured by the way, so I would pick him, even if you like Niou.” Marui explained, as they left the premises and got to Marui’s small bike.

Yagyuu stopped there and shook his head, firmly and carefully. “Tell Yukimura-kun that isn’t possible. I’m in the middle of tests, nobody else can just take over, not even my assistants. Only I know the ways I’ve altered these drugs. If he wants his biochemical ventures to succeed, I can’t leave the lab. He can get someone else out on the field, can’t he?”

Marui shook his head, earnestly, as he tucked a strand of red hair behind his ear. “Yagyuu, Sanada and Yanagi are both convinced that the police force will be back soon. Everyone’s preparing for war against the city. Negotiations can only go so far, and even if no police officers died this time, they will next time, and that’s it for our people. You need to be out and fighting or sabotaging.”

Yagyuu’s lips parted and he frowned. “But that doesn’t make any sense, even so. Didn’t my message get to Yukimura-kun? I sent it a week ago? I managed to replicate the first symptoms I showed him on a large scale. In a week or two’s worth of work, I can reduce side-effects to almost zero.” he said, and Marui frowned at him.

“I didn’t get anything. Dunno about Yukimura, though…” he said, as he frowned up towards the elevated parts of the slums. What the hell was Yagyuu doing anyway? First symptoms? Was he really making a new type of more addictive, but less harmful drug, like Niou had speculated? Or was it something else, if he was so keen on staying in his labs, even with the threat of major violence and guerrilla warfare.

“If Yukimura-kun didn’t tell you about it, he doesn’t want you to know details.” said Yagyuu, apologetically, as he slicked back his drying hair. “Will you go up to him and ask him whether he received my message about the symptoms? If he has, and he still wants me to leave, I will.”

Serious, as ever. Marui sighed, as his gaze slid back up to the building where their main base of operations was based. “Alright then.” he said, with a heavy sigh, as he kicked the bike’s stand off and revved up the engine, not bothering to attach his helmet. He wouldn’t fall off, he was a tensai, after all.

In less than an hour, he returned and burst into the room, interrupting Yagyuu, who was in the middle of pipetting something to some rats. Yagyuu looked up, his goggles affixed over his face and a white lab coat firmly over his clothes. “Marui-kun?” he asked, looking just a little annoyed by the distraction.

Marui just glared at him, as he caught his breath. The smell was better now, but Marui felt even more disgusted. “Your first test subject was Akaya.” he said, as he gritted out the words that had ran through his mind during the whole journey back.

“Yukimura told you everything.” said Yagyuu, looking apologetic, as he bent back down to the rats, not stopping in his actions. His hands were precise and neat and Marui wondered how it was that he’d managed to administer this to Akaya. “It’s not very moral, no.”

“And what, one dose is enough to make him some super warrior, filled with rage?” asked Marui, with a shaky laugh. “Filled with so much rage and strength that he could kill himself from the pressure of his blood pumping at all?”

Yagyuu’s hands stilled, and he straightened up, with a vaguely frustrated expression on his face. “He was a city boy. You think that Yukimura trusted him at all when he first arrived amongst our midst? It was a precaution well-taken, and I needed to see the effects on a human, anyway. And now, well, he’s safe as long as he doesn’t get too angry.” At Marui’s incredulously shocked expression, his face hardened.

“It was a necessary risk, Marui-kun. We are criminals, do remember that. I didn’t expect the side-effects, but nevertheless, those side-effects will not exist for anyone else who will take this drug now.” His face was determined and Marui growled, as he palmed his hair. It was one thing to kill those who broke the laws of the slums. It was one thing to sell drugs to people who wanted it. It was one thing to deal in what people wanted and to get things places, even if they weren’t strictly moral. It was another to forcefully drug one of their own with a ticking time-bomb.

“Is this what we’re prepared to do to win?” whispered Marui, as he took a seat on the table he’d cleaned off before, his head hitting the table with defeat.

“Always win Rikkai.” murmured Yagyuu, in return. “If you think that the bloody cloths aren’t potent enough of a reminder, think about a living, breathing reminder of the follies of experimentation.” His smile was cutting and his glasses glinted in the light. The self-loathing dripped from his voice and Marui found it impossible to blame Yagyuu.

Marui tilted his head back, looking up at the tube-lights with honest weariness. “I fucking hate this place.” he muttered, as the gaze got too bright to look at. “I wanted to be a baker when I was five years old. Provide stuff to everyone, because we had nothing back then. Dunno what happened to that. Only stuff we provide to people now is overly expensive drugs.”

“And protection from enemies. We are not the ones waging war in this case.” said Yagyuu, quietly, as he closed the rat cages, and peeled off his gloves. “Yukimura was trying for diplomacy, we are righteous in this much.”

“But we are capable of harming our own.” said Marui, with a shrug. “Say what you will about that Tezuka, but he cares about the people of the upper-city.”

Yagyuu just offered Marui a commiserating smile. “Are you going to defect, Marui-kun?” he asked, quietly.

“Nah.” said Marui, without thinking. He knew the consequences for that, and besides, he wouldn’t ever leave. Not really. He was just…shocked, more than he’d expected to be. He supposed that despite all of their actions, he’d sort of been thinking of Rikkai as vigilante justice instead of criminals, hadn’t he? It made him feel less confident, this revelation. “Does the kid know?”

“No. Keep it that way. Only Yukimura and Yanagi know so far.” said Yagyuu, his voice serious. “And don’t trigger him. It’s triggered by chemical smell combined with anger. It’s why he’s forbidden from handling the drugs or being near the labs. He’s not that clumsy.”

The smell of the lab was nauseating, like stinging charges to his nose, made cloying by the air freshener. Or maybe it was just Marui. He straightened upwards, rapidly and nodded to Yagyuu. “Right.” He took a deep breath inwards and exhaled, loudly. “Keep eating, seriously, I know my food is incomparable, but you have to deal with other people’s substandard creations too. Finish this. Stay goddamn clean, I don’t want to have to come back here to make sure you shower. My genius is wasted inside such an awful room. And find yourself a fucking bed; if you sleep on these tables, you’ll become a narco.” lectured Marui, as he tried to pull himself back up to his proper height, as if he didn’t feel all sorts of empty inside.

Yagyuu just smirked. “Of course, Marui-kun.” he said, as he adjusted his glasses. And everything was back to usual. Except Marui had a war to fight and more people to go and recruit. He was definitely off-schedule.


End file.
